Sunday, February 26

Let's put klezmer on its feet! Get out your dancing shoes and get ready for an exciting klezmer dance immersion.

We are thrilled to welcome Steven Lee Weintraub, a living legend in the world of klezmer dance, on Sunday, February 26. Steve will introduce all of us to the figures, steps and stylings of the dances that belong to klezmer music. We'll start with a workshop and will then bring our new fancy footwork to a rollicking klezmer dance party. 

No experience needed. Even if you don't know a sher from a bulgar, Steve will have you understanding klezmer music and movement in a whole new way! You'll have a blast dancing to live music performed by members of the Nu Haven Kapelye.

Klezmer Dance Fest  

Led by Steve Weintraub  
Presented and accompanied live by the Nu Haven Kapelye  

Klezmer music was mostly created to be dance music. This workshop covers the figures, steps and styling for many of the dances in the klezmer repertoire. Learn the lively freylekhs, the boisterous bulgar, the stately zhok, the essential Jewish square dance the sher (a party with seven of your friends), and more. The following dance party will let us put our new knowledge on its feet!

Sunday, February 26  
2pm Klezmer Dance Workshop  
6pm Klezmer Dance Party  

Events take place at Congregation Mishkan Israel, 785 Ridge Road, Hamden, CT  

About Steve Weintraub

Born on Governor's Island and Bar Mitzvahed in the Bronx, Steven Lee Weintraub received his dance training in Manhattan with Alvin Ailey and Erick Hawkins, among others. He has worked with choreographers Felix Fibich and Shula Kivel, and has performed the work of Fred Berk, He was a principal dancer and choreographer with the Israeli folkdance group Parparim and is assistant director of the annual Israeli Folk Dance Festival in NYC. For many years he choreographed and danced with his partner Sharona Paller Rubenstien.   

He is in international demand as a teacher and leader of traditional Yiddish dance at festivals and workshops such as Klezkamp, KlezKanada, Yiddish New York, and Yidstock, and festivals in Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Romania, UK and France. He delights in introducing people to the figures, steps and stylings of the dances that belong to klezmer music and has become adept at successfully teaching dance over Zoom, as well as in person. 

Steven now lives in Philadelphia, and in 2016 choreographed and performed in an evening length new Yiddish dance theater piece GILGUL-Transformations, for festival week at Yiddish Summer Weimar. He also choreographed a Jewish Wedding suite (A Freylekhn Khasene - A Joyous Wedding) for the Brigham Young University folk dancers.